Google today announced that it plans to officially bring Android to smartwatches through its new project entitled Android Wear. The project will enable developers to bring features such as Google voice search and health tracking apps to wristwatches.
Via Alex Butler

This is an interesting article about IBM's future over the next 5 years and explains the we learn will change in the future. It says teaching will become more customised based on compiled data about the student.

Patient engagement represents the next aim of healthcare reform through the adoption of health IT systems and services. It just received a boost from PCORI. (How does patient engagement transform into useful EHR data?

The road to the Food and Drug Administration's Silver Spring, Md., office this year has been well-traveled by the big technology firms. Both Google and Apple have met with FDA leadership to talk about healthcare plans, and a recent review of FDA's public calendar reveals Amazon.com has joined the FDA healthcare parade.

You’re sitting in the waiting room, icing your sore ankle. The teenager to your right is moaning and clutching his belly. The woman to your left is coughing into her mask. A stretcher rolls by with a man yelling at the top of his lungs. An ambulance arrives. You see...

Healthcare was once about trying to heal the sick patient. But organisations around the world, including the NHS, now have an opportunity to shift this focus to one of keeping the public healthy and anticipating health issues before they become a problem.

The ability to create and capture data is exploding and offers huge potential for the NHS to save both lives and scarce resources.

Healthcare and life sciences are the fastest growing and biggest impact industries today when it comes to big data. In the UK, huge anonymised datasets are being developed for areas such as pharmaceutical research, with the aim of vastly improving the efficacy of drugs. Disease research is also being supported by big data to help tackle conditions such as diabetes and cancer.

But the UK has an opportunity to go much further in unleashing the real power of big data – the potential to personalise healthcare for every NHS patient. Identifying people at risk of becoming ill or developing a serious condition and providing the foresight to prescribe preventive measures is a very real possibility.

DTC marketers need to go beyond standard product health sites and focus on the journey that online patients take to determine which health care treatments are best for them.

The FDA has eased social media marketing guidelines for 3rd party sites and frankly DTC marketers should be meeting to determine how they can leverage the draft guidelines to increase conversion.

It’s important to understand that a very small percentage of consumers see a DTC TV ad and run to their doctor to ask for an RX. Today interest in prescription drugs usually means spending time online to research the product and learn about side effects which could hinder quality of life.

Last year we followed consumers online, via a funded study, as they learned about prescription drugs and various health conditions. The top-line key findings were:

Expect a modest increase in pharmaceutical ads on social media as a result of a new FDA draft guidance document just issued for comment. That's the expectation of industry observers who hailed the agency's long-awaited move as “a good start.”

Focused only on FDA's reporting requirements for ads on “interactive promotional media” (to use the agency's own terminology), the new document doesn't go as far as many have been hoping. That could come in July when the 2012 FDA Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA) requires the agency to “issue guidance that describes FDA policy regarding the promotion, using the Internet (including social media), of medical products” that it regulates.

But for now, observers like APCO Worldwide's president of regulatory services and healthcare, Wayne Pines, praise the draft guidance for explaining, at last, what FDA holds companies accountable for on the Internet, after years of uncertainty.

“It also helps that FDA expects Form-2253 submissions periodically rather than every single time there is an addition or change on the Internet,” Pines said. “And FDA made clear that it will exercise enforcement discretion in issuing enforcement letters.

“I think that the regulated companies and the media/communications companies were expecting a much more detailed guidance, setting forth what they can and cannot do with social media. However, FDA has said all along that it applies the same regulatory standard to Internet/social media materials that it does to other promotional materials, namely that the claims be supported by substantial evidence and that there be a fair balance of risk information.”

Coalition for Healthcare Communication executive director John Kamp predicts the guidance will produce a modest increase in social media advertising, rather than “open the flood gates.” That's because, he said, FDA isn't the only or even the biggest reason for advertiser reluctance—there are lots of other reasons, plaintiffs' failure-to-warn suits being the biggest.

Kamp especially likes the flexibility FDA is offering in the guidance—companies can report their ads every day if they wish, or adhere to official deadlines.

Most significant to Kamp is that FDA has for the first time committed itself in the document to not holding advertisers responsible for things they don't control.

FDA's definition of “promotional labeling” is expansive, and in the new draft guidance it says no physical relationship between the promotional words and the product is necessary. The draft links to examples published in the Federal Register that, while antiquated, include non-printed materials like motion picture films, sound recordings, and “audio or visual matter descriptive of a drug …”

The agency has been elastic and quite imaginative in interpreting this section of its regulations to fit whatever industry comes up with on the Internet.

If it meets the new FDASIA law's July 9 deadline to elaborate on its policy toward Internet “promotional labeling” of all regulated medical products, look for more details then. Or shortly thereafter.

The document delineates, with examples, how FDA decides that a firm is “responsible” for information disseminated on social media by third parties.

In the case of user-generated content, the draft guidance says FDA will “exercise enforcement discretion” (read: take no enforcement action) if firms participating in such discussions one of five steps: (1) Submit all sites in their entirety on Forms 2253 or 2301 at the time of initial display; (2) in the case of a firm's interactive or real-time communication on a third-party site, submit the home page, the interactive page and the firm's first communication on either form at the time of initial display; (3)submit monthly updates of all non-restricted sites for which the firm is responsible; (4) submit all content from restricted sites that is related to the discussion, making sure the report accurately reflects the context; and (5) ensure that site submissions take formatting factors into consideration “to enable the agency to view the communications as a whole.”

AliveCor announces the launch of a mobile heart health service with expert ECG analysis now available through the AliveECG app making monitoring of he (AliveCor Transforms Heart Monitor into eHealth Service | Business Wire

Patient and family education is an important responsibility of a healthcare organization. Healthcare employees who deal directly with patients help in informing them and their family members about everything related ...

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